15 Craziest Things We Saw at SEMA

LAS VEGAS — The Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association Show — aka SEMA, aka one of the largest trade shows in the nation — is many things, but above all, it is a gathering of the weird. Of the seemingly impossible. Of the stuff that appears only in daydreams and movies best viewed under the influence of drugs.

That, of course, is what makes SEMA great: It's an excuse for anyone and everyone who makes stuff for cars to go absolutely nuts. Where else are you going to find a V-8-powered, fluid-drive off-road buggy like the one above (81 inches tall, 111-inch wheelbase, air suspension, perfect for the zombie apocalypse), parked within spitting distance of the first Cobra that Carroll Shelby ever built? You can walk for days and still not see all the wonderful and weird stuff that SEMA has to offer.

Not that we didn't try. Condensing the show's strangeness isn't an easy task, but we took a shot. Here's a glimpse of what makes SEMA great.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

Say hello to a twin-turbo Dodge Viper. It has two very, very large intake tracts hanging from each turbocharger. It does not wear a stock hood, and for obvious reasons. It wants to be your friend. It won't bite. Maybe.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

For some reason, a 2011 Chevrolet Camaro fitted with air suspension and wheels the size of oil drums makes perfect sense.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

Take a good look at this picture. The guys at Popular Mechanics got together with the guys at Mythbusters and flipped the body, front to rear, on a Porsche 928. Then they made the damn thing driveable. Note the exhaust pipe at the "front" and the steerable "rear" wheels. You drive it while looking out the hatch.

According to Popular Mechanics, the show commissioned the project to test the legend that aerodynamics makes the Porsche faster going backward than forward. Or something. We think they did it just to give Porsche Club of America guys aneurysms.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

This car started life as a Toyota Prius. Now it looks like a giant mutant catfish. Toyota made that happen. That's really all you need to know.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

There really isn't anything crazy about a Ferrari 458 Italia. Hang one from the ceiling to show off the exhaust, however, and you're officially nuttier than a bag full of weasels. The TV to the left of this bizarre display shows a looped video of a 458 fitted with an Akrapovic exhaust. The footage prompted a bystander to mutter something about how "the damn thing sounds like a windup toy."

This is a Jeep Wrangler that's been turned into a low-speed hunting rig, complete with joystick controls for both external seating platforms. We'd tell you more, but the sign was painted in camouflage and we couldn't read it. Seriously.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

A bored woman, a miniature Lamborghini Gallardo, hot desert sun. Oh, and a much-modified Mazda RX-2 in the background along with a super-slammed Ford pickup. Welcome to SEMA.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

A Toyota Yaris is prepped for SCCA H-Production club road racing, complete with laughably tiny wheels and tires. For further proof that they're smoking something good at Toyota, note the stretched Sienna minivan — dubbed "Swagger Wagon Supreme" — in the background.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

Horny helmets, a wall of skulls and vomit-green piles of sparkly goo. Just the thing for all your death-metal, hellfire, head-protection needs!

Musician Neil Young's LincVolt, a 1959 Lincoln Continental fitted with an electric drivetrain and an electricity-generating diesel turbine. The turbine is the big gray thing under the hood; the trunk is filled with a bathtub-sized box of electronics that vaguely resembles a flux capacitor.

Help! My Scion's been eaten by a ... er ... yes, that's an octopus, or possibly a squid. Wait, what?

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

This is the first Cobra that Carroll Shelby built, and the first AC Ace to be fitted with a Ford V-8. It was tucked away in a corner getting no love at all from the crowd. This, folks, is SEMA in a nutshell: Automotive history is passed over in favor of a Scion wearing an octopus.

Photo: Sam Smith/Wired.com

There was woefully little information available about this beastie, but as far we can tell, it's one of the best things to ever put rubber to pavement. That's a Suzuki Hayabasa engine sitting between the front wheels, which wear Dunlop sportbike tires. When we die, we want to be driving this.